Primary Source

In 1664, Peter Stuyvesant was forced to surrender the Dutch colony of New Netherland to England, under the “Articles, Whereupon the Citty and Fort Amsterdam and the Province of the New Netherlands Were Surrendered.”

Primary Source

This map of “la Louisiane,” published by French geographer Guillaume de l’Isle, is the first detailed map of the Gulf Coast region and the Mississippi River, as well as the first printed map to show Texas and identify New Orleans.

Primary Source

During the British siege of Boston, a Continental Army officer and former Boston bookseller named Henry Knox suggested that cannon might be used to drive the British from the town. George Washington sent Knox to Crown Point and the recently captured Fort Ticonderoga in northern New York to retrieve fifty-nine cannon and mortars and bring them to Boston.

Primary Source

The Lewis and Clark expedition returned to Missouri in September 1806 with valuable maps of the Louisiana Territory. After Lewis’s death in 1809, Clark took responsibility for organizing and releasing the expedition journals to eager scientists and curious Americans.

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When Columbus arrived back in Spain on March 15, 1493, he immediately wrote a letter announcing his discoveries to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, who had helped finance his trip. The Latin printing of this letter announced the existence of the American continent throughout Europe.

Primary Source

This copy of Washington’s orders for the Battle of Trenton, with a map of Trenton drawn on the back, belonged to Henry Knox, chief artillery officer, and was written in his own hand. Also presented here is Knox’s firsthand account of the battle, in a letter written to his wife Lucy on December 28.

Teaching Resource

Reading 1:Our manifest destiny [is] to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.

John L. O'Sullivan, 1845

Reading 2:Texas has been absorbed into the Union as the inevitable fulfillment of the general law which is rolling our population westward....It was disintegrated from Mexico in the natural course of events, by a process perfectly legitimate on its own part,...